


The Great House Debate: Critical Role Edition

by alatarmaia4



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, TRY AND STOP ME, but here i go running off into the blue with all these thoughts o' mine, i was drawn into this conversation against my will, yeah im doing vox machina too what are you gonna do about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-19 03:31:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15501375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alatarmaia4/pseuds/alatarmaia4
Summary: A large argument was had re: Sorting various Critical Role characters, and I realized I didn't have opinions on most of them. That needed to change immediately, because the internet was having an argument and I can never resist expressing an opinion, so here I am.





	1. What Are the Houses Even

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, aside from this intro chapter, each character in the Mighty Nein and Vox Machina will be getting a chapter to themselves for me to work through my thoughts. Once those are done, I'll probably open up requests for various guest players from either campaign, either when I think of them, when someone asks for it, or when someone commissions me.
> 
> For now, enjoy! If you'd like to argue with me, I'm on tumblr (wizard-fallen-angel).

Alright, let’s do this. 

So the great debate in every fandom is, where would (insert favorite character’s name) be Sorted if they were in the Harry Potter universe? It’s a difficult question to answer. Rowling, whose reputation has decayed over the years as fans grew older and more disillusioned with her, created a Sorting system whose bare black-and-white facts were enough to satiate eleven year old target audience minds, but which falls flat in the face of the meta machine that is today’s internet fandom.

But the question does demand an answer. To find a satisfactory one, one must first put together the facts, or headcanons in some cases, about what Sorting  _ truly  _ means. Are these budding witches and wizards Sorted based on inherent qualities of mind or spirit? Is the decision based on how they view magic (as a tool, or a gift to be shared, etc), or on how they most desire to use it? The answers to  _ these  _ puzzles differ from person to person as well. To answer them, by going through what facts Rowling shares about the Founder’s decision-making process, I intend to build a sturdy foundation for the various Sorting arguments that will follow this chapter, and establish exactly what qualities belong to which house.

Yes, maybe Rowling’s off her rocker in regards to certain ideas about certain houses (coughSlytherins aren’t all evilcough), and yes, this sounds like the introductory paragraph of someone’s nerdy thesis paper. Bear with me. I like to have something to start with - that’s why I write fanfiction.

Additionally, many people, as human beings, contain qualities that might pledge them to more than one House. As a Hufflepuff myself, I am particularly ambitious, though cunning not so much (I always lose at chess). That said, while I may note ‘secondary’ House leanings in each character’s chapter, I am going to be primarily establishing which House they would be Sorted into. 

(A note: While I believe the Sorting Hat probably does fudge historical events for the sake of a rhyme scheme or melody, I am willing to consider it a reliable historical witness for the sake of this meta. That said, the only songs that were written down in full were in books one, four, and five, so there may be information that canonically exists that we as readers are not given. C’est la vie.)

Canonically, the Sorting Hat was formerly the hat of Godric Gryffindor, and was enchanted on the spot (so it says) to serve as the Sorting tool. We know the Founders came from different places (geographically, at least) and came together with a common goal and different ideas about how to achieve it. They had seven years of happiness with Hogwarts (see book five’s song) before Slytherin departed, his obsession with the students’ pure-blooded ancestry (or lack of) having driven an irreparable wedge between him and the other three. I’ll address Slytherin not quite last, but since I am a Hufflepuff at heart, I’d prefer to start with that house, conveniently capitalized so you can scroll down and quickly find whichever house you want to read about first.  

HUFFLEPUFF house, founded by Helga Hufflepuff, was said to be the house where Helga would “...teach the lot/And treat them just the same” (Order of the Phoenix, p.205). This is my personal favorite description for this House, because it allows for a universe where a random group of eleven year olds do not all fit neatly into one of four categories - otherwise known as reality. However, in earlier songs (Sorceror’s Stone and Goblet of Fire), the hat describes Hufflepuffs as just, loyal, patient, true (probably the same as loyal), unafraid of toil, and hard workers (again, the same as unafraid of toil, but the Hat does have a song to write). 

Now, this is a lot to unpack at once, so let’s take it piece by piece. Hufflepuffs are just - fair, in simpler and less archaic-sounding terms (seriously, just sounds like the end of a knight of the round table’s title. There has to have been a So-and-so the Just, unless I’m thinking of King Edmund from the Chronicles of Narnia). I take this to mean that this is a surprisingly rational bunch of eleven year olds, or at least people who have already developed certain ideas about the world, but fairness can range from ‘don’t take what doesn’t belong to you (aka don’t take  _ my  _ thing)’ to ‘(insert developed idea about politics, justice, or otherwise worldwide relevant topic here)’. Hufflepuff is therefore probably a house where older students do a lot of mediating between feuding, younger ones, and any intra-house arguments are quickly squashed. 

‘Loyal’ or ‘true’ is shown in canon - there’s a strong Hufflepuff to Hufflepuff bond. Once you’re in the group, you’re in it forever. In Goblet of Fire, when Hufflepuffs see the title of Hogwarts champion for the Triwizard Champion being ‘mooched’ off by Harry, they see it additionally as a slight against Cedric, and respond accordingly by ostracizing Harry (but never, as we may note, by attacking him physically or with wands, as Rowling has some Slytherins do when they don’t like Harry). 

Cedric, however, who knows the truth - that it was done against Harry’s will - is upset by this and sees it as  _ unfair,  _ and so attempts to make the situation right by not only trying to prevent his Housemates from exercising their justice, but tipping the scales of the competition more in Harry’s favor - balancing the unfair advantage the other competitors have on Harry in the form of three extra years of schooling and magic-learning. Harry gets hints from him about the egg, and Cedric in exchange for Harry’s help in the maze offers to split the prize with him even though he could easily beat Harry to it. 

So Hufflepuffs are the type not only to be acutely aware of unfairness, but see to it that they come to a communal decision about what justice should be meted out, and then  _ immediately  _ set to seeing it done. Here’s where the hard work comes in - they  _ get it done,  _ whatever ‘it’ is. Should anyone object to ‘it’ being unfair in some way, they’d probably not be alone, and their objections would be listened to. Maybe not by all, but by a fair few. And if there’s any kind of disagreement between Hufflepuffs, as we’ve said, it would be quickly sorted out. Not squashed or swept under the rug, because that’s unfair to those who are being potentially wronged - sorted out and fixed. 

Of RAVENCLAW, its founder Rowena supposedly said, “We’ll teach those whose/Intelligence is surest” (Order of the Phoenix). The Hat describes “wise old Ravenclaw” as the place for the one “...with a ready mind/Where those of wit and learning/Will always find their kind” (Sorcerer’s Stone, p.88). In Goblet of Fire, his song credits Ravenclaw with thinking that “...the cleverest/Would always be the best” (p.177). 

So for a start, Rowena Ravenclaw (who personally taught at least the first group of students in her House, probably, before the school got too big) was  _ only willing to accept  _ those who seemed bright, could think of clever solutions to questions or problems, and those who enjoyed learning. It doesn’t seem like Rowena was anything but no-nonsense - she wanted to be sure that everyone in her classes was there because they wanted to be, not just because of truancy laws (which probably didn’t exist in the 10th century AD) or because someone had told them to be there. Thus the pool of potential eleven year olds is watered down to those who enjoy school. Is it any wonder everyone thinks Hermione should have been a Ravenclaw?

But, as everyone knows the public school system is terrible (or is this an American feeling only?), a child can enjoy learning without enjoying school, and with a Hat that can see into your mind, that definitely counts. 

But we don’t see many Ravenclaws in the books - one of the primary Ravenclaw characters is in fact ostracized by her Housemates, marking them as  _ very  _ different from Hufflepuffs. Luna Lovegood establishes that Ravenclaw is not a house for the for those who venture beyond the acceptable limits of what is believed. In a world with magic, what’s so outlandish about her tales of strange creatures with various spiritual powers? 

Simple: every other strange creature with magical powers is  _ known  _ to academia. Thanks to Newt Scamander’s book being on the curriculum, everyone knows or at least has access to a rundown of a Puffskein’s temperament, or what a Basilisk is. Thus we know that Ravenclaws depend on a group viewpoint as well, though a more removed one than Hufflepuffs’ community-oriented beliefs. If there’s no proof for it - if nobody’s heard of it or seen it or smelled it - then it’s not real. It’s fake news. Ravenclaws are not scientists, experimenting and making up hypotheses - they are scholars and academics. They’re the people in your AP Lit class getting really into analyzing Crime and Punishment to find Raskolnikov’s True Motive. Ravenclaws are not the bastions of change, they are the bastions of tradition in a way almost similar to Slytherins. 

This is why Hermione Granger is a Gryffindor, but it’s also why she could have been a good fit for this house - like Ravenclaw, Hermione is sure she knows what’s Wrong and what’s Right. From “It’s levi-OHHH-sa, not levi-oh-SAAA” in book one, to her leading the Horcrux expedition, everything Hermione does is based around her idea of what’s factually right. Voldemort is factually in the wrong - Muggleborns are not worse than purebloods or undeserving of magic - so she gives up her  _ entire education  _ to take him down. For, in bare bones terms, fake news. 

SLYTHERIN, on the other hand, is actually  _ more  _ in favor of change - as long as it’s in the ‘correct’ direction, aka, what direction the Slytherin in question wants it to go. Slytherins’ opinions are far more based on their own moral compasses than on objective, logical fact. That is not to say that they all have skewed moral compasses or fall in shades of gray rather than black and white - everyone in the world is a shade of gray, or in the words of Mistress Weatherwax, “white that’s got a bit grubby”. 

Let’s see what the Hat has to say. In Sorcerer’s Stone, while we’ve already heard plenty of bad things about Slytherin from Hagrid and Ron Weasley, the Hat sings, “Those cunning folk use any means/To achieve their ends”. Rowling uses this to call them evil; this description puts me more in mind of a Chaotic alignment, to delve into D&D terms. Chaotic-aligned people, whether they’re Good, Neutral, or Evil, prioritize individuals (usually themselves) over ‘the whole’, or strangers. I’ll be using fewer examples from the text, since textual examples are inherently biased - Rowling, and Harry as her untrustworthy narrator, both dislike Slytherins on principle. But let’s use at least a few. 

On the Chaotic Evil end, Voldemort’s moral compass (and past experience) drives him to believe it is morally okay to remove Muggleborns from the community by whatever means necessary. To this end, he assembles a group of like-minded individuals, who he sweet-talks into dealing with him. Though the Death Eaters (for example, Lucius and Snape) may later grow disillusioned with him, they continue to remain at his side in order to further their own agendas; Snape to pay a debt to another master, Lucius to keep his family safe. The latter may not quite be an agenda, but it’s an ‘end’ Lucius is ‘doing anything’ to achieve. 

On another hand, however, Narcissa has the same ‘end’ as Lucius - keeping their family safe. To further this end, her ‘means’ is ‘lying to Voldemort’s face about whether Harry is dead or not in book seven’, saving Harry and allowing him to make it to the final duel wherein he kills Voldemort and allows Narcissa to fulfil her goals by removing the danger threatening her family. I won’t comment on Narcissa’s alignment, but if I were building her as a D&D character, I’d play her as Chaotic Neutral or True Neutral for sure. I don’t know if she even was in Slytherin (unlike Lucius, that’s unconfirmed as far as I know), but considering she was a Black before marriage, it’s unlikely she was anything else. 

As for the Chaotic Goods, Horace Slughorn's moral compass directs him along the easiest path - riding on others' coattails. It's a very secure way to live your life - he's never going to be famous, but he's always going to have plenty of grateful friends, and _lots_ of connections among more prestigious circles. 

Slytherins, or at least the pure-blood extremists among them, may consider themselves bastions of traditional ways, but they cause  _ the  _ most change in the Wizarding World through all seven books - maybe not good change, or progress, but change nonetheless. That’s why there’s so many Slytherins (or at least pureblood sympathizers, since Rowling conflates the two so thoroughly) in the Ministry, as far as the audience is aware - they’re the Wizarding World’s movers and shakers. Of  _ course  _ they’re getting elected. 

GRYFFINDOR, on the other hand, does not drive change, but  _ reacts  _ to it. First, let’s review what the Hat has to say about Gryffindor. Gryffindor, we’re told, is “...where dwell the brave at heart/Their daring, nerve, and chivalry/Set Gryffindors apart” (Sorcerer’s Stone). In book four, we’re told Godric prized “the bravest...far beyond the rest”, and his quote in Order of the Phoenix’s song is that “We’ll teach all those/With brave deeds to their name”.

I’m sure brave deeds were quite easy to wander across opportunities for in nine-hundred-whatever AD; with the Roman Empire three hundred years fallen and no longer ruling England, and the Norse gearing up to raid the crap out of the British Isles, it probably took bravery just to leave your house in the morning. But Gryffindor’s definition is  _ immediately  _ given more depth by Rowling when she has Neville Sorted into this house. We see Neville, the antithesis of bravery, a Hatstall who runs off with the Hat still on his head. But Neville is awarded a decisive ten points at the end of Sorcerer’s Stone for having the bravery to stand up to his friends at only an anxiety-ridden eleven, and in Prisoner of Azkaban it’s revealed that he’s had the guts to face his own worst fear nearly every day for the last  _ three. Years. Three years.  _ Can you imagine doing that yourself?   


So Rowling quite neatly sets up the idea of unconventional bravery. It’s not all chopping heads off monsters. Sometimes it  _ is _ just leaving your house, or even your room, in the morning, to get on with your life. There are a lot of people plagued by Dementors in this world, metaphorical or otherwise, who can relate to that kind of struggle. Which is why Gryffindors are the protagonists, of course - this is a book series aimed at children, and Gryffindor (to that end or as a result of it) has the most obvious and valuable lesson to impart to small children. 

But, as I was saying, Gryffindors are a  _ reactive  _ house, not a proactive one. Harry never really takes the initiative in his fights. I don’t mean that badly - looking at the series broadly, the actions he takes are  _ in response  _ to what is done to him. Harry never charges into a single situation, he’d just like one peaceful year, please. But once he sees a situation he doesn’t like, he’s got no compunctions about charging in to fix it. When Hermione goes missing during the troll scare in Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry and Ron are brave enough to go dashing through the castle to find her, and have the nerve (or, for the adults, the balls) to face down the troll when it finds them. 

Harry reacts to Voldemort’s threats and schemes, direct or indirect, every time they confront him. The most proactive he gets is when he’s hunting down Horcruxes, but if he was not  _ reacting  _ to the complete control Voldemort appeared to be asserting over Wizarding society, he’d probably just bust into Malfoy Manor and throw a few Expelliarmus-es around until one happened to hit Voldemort. That might even have worked (if Voldemort had the Elder wand when he was Expelliarmus’ed, Harry would gain a distinct advantage). 

But let’s be honest, if Voldemort  _ had  _ died that night in Godric’s Hollow, Harry would have mostly just gone about his business and learned things at Hogwarts. He doesn’t  _ want  _ to fight - he’s just a kid who had an incredibly shitty, abusive home life that gave him a distinct sense of fair versus unfair, and when he sees something unfair he doesn’t have a Hufflepuff’s community - he has a handful of friends who would follow him into battle and no common sense to tell him _not_ to step in. 

To return to the subject of Godric, Godric was the kind of person who probably knew that the world was not kind to things it didn’t understand, and what it didn’t understand it often didn’t like. While there were no witch-burnings yet, there was no Statute of Secrecy either, and probably no cohesive ‘Wizarding World’. He wanted to teach kids he knew with reasonable certainty had the nerve to take charge of their magical power and be no less likely to die young than anyone else in that day and age. But just like Slytherins, that power - the daring to take charge of what magic you could grab and use it - could be pointed in both good and bad directions. Gryffindors aren't inherently good, they're just impulsive.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's that, then. Like I said, if anyone wants to argue, I'm on tumblr as wizard-fallen-angel or on discord as Alatar #2875. If you ask nicely, I might even reveal my twitter ;)
> 
> The next chapter, and first character up, will be the one I have the strongest opinions about - Caleb Widogast.


	2. Caleb and Nott - Slytherin and Gryffindor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this was gonna be just Caleb, but I figured I'd do the team up, since otherwise it'd be really short. For clarification, the chapter title is their respective Houses.

Let’s review.

Caleb Widogast was born to a poor family, the son of a man named Leofric Widogast (a military man, as we later learn) and a woman named Una. He was bright, by his own labeling, and presumably charismatic from a young age, given that his whole town chipped in to send him to the Soltryce Academy. 

And Caleb  _ is  _ bright. He was good enough to gain the dubious honor of Trent Ikithon’s attention, good enough to make it into the Academy and succeed under Trent’s idea of schooling. And we know from a mechanical standpoint that Caleb is not only very intelligent, but seeking new magical knowledge constantly.

Now, we know from word-of-Liam that Caleb is True Neutral, formerly Lawful Evil. I’ve classified True Neutrals previously as Slytherins, or more accurately the other way around, but you get where I’m going with this. Caleb is pretty solidly a Slytherin for me. 

The biggest element in this Sorting is  _ change.  _ I’ve classed Slytherins as the movers and shakers of the world. Caleb wants nothing more in the world than change, than to be able to gain the power to give him the ‘means’ to his ‘end’; that is, reversing the one choice he made that he can never forgive himself for. Here we see Caleb’s moral compass - without whatever conditioning, magical or otherwise, that was placed upon him by Trent, he has a  _ very  _ strict sense of good and evil, or at least right and wrong. Even in the depths of his fanatic nationalism for the Dwendalian Empire, the murder of his own parents pinged so hard on the Wrong side of his sense of morals that he went to pieces trying to make sense of what he’d just done, and justify it to himself. 

    As we see, by the time Caleb escapes the asylum ten or so years later, he has not justified it to himself - but rather than punishing himself, he has charged himself with making it right. Making change in the right direction. 

The search for knowledge and the sense of right and wrong are enough to lean him slightly towards Ravenclaw, but Caleb prizes utmost his own goals over all other obstacles. The knowledge is for the sake of his ambition, not for the sake of learning or the pleasure of it. I don’t think there’s much Caleb takes pleasure in anymore except books, but that’s a happy side effect of his journey, not the cause that sparked it. 

In the High Richter’s house, Caleb decided that stealing the spell scroll, if it could grant him a little more power, was worth the risk. He’s expressed the opinion, multiple times, that he and Nott running off by themselves is very much a viable option for him. He has also said, at least to Nott, that the rest of the Mighty Nein are only their partners to better Caleb’s and Nott’s situations - not their friends. While this opinion changed later in the game, Caleb in particular of the two was slow to change his mind. 

While we’re on the subject, and I’m running out of things to say about Caleb and don’t wish to leave this chapter so short, what about Nott? Nott the Brave - her very name would imply which house she’s meant to be in. But of course, there’s no comma, so maybe it tells us which one she  _ doesn’t  _ belong to.

Nott has a Neville type of bravery. In a world that would kill you as soon as it realized what you were, her bravery really is just being able to walk out the door in the morning. There may not be a comma, but Brave  _ is  _ in her name for a reason - I don’t know how goblin naming works, but it is for sure a quality she possesses in droves. Not only is she often a melee fighter willing to take impulsive, reactive risks in a fight (the manticore baby, anyone?) she’s also willing to confront her friends when she thinks they need to be confronted. Her conversation with Caleb while the remains of the Mighty Nein were on the trail of the Iron Shepherds proves as much. 

Nott is very much a warrior’s friend to Caleb - one best friend, not a community of them,  who would follow him into battle if he asked. This is a quintessentially Gryffindor thing, in my mind - a very private, closed friendship with unquestioned trust, though differences in opinion occasionally cause them to clash. This is, I’ll argue, also how Nott fell in with the Mighty Nein so quickly. A handful of close friends that have forged their bonds in battle, that’s the Gryffindor ideal (see Harry and his Dumbledore’s Army, his Golden Trio). They’ve also proved that they’ll take on the bonds she’s already formed - accepting NottAndCaleb, not just Nott, though accepting Nott unquestioningly is already a pretty significant bar to clear. 

I would argue, also, that Nott has some Hufflepuff leanings in addition to being a Gryffindor. She clearly prizes not just her friendship with Caleb, but the camaraderie of the entire Mighty Nein - a community, rather than just one or two warrior allies. While the Mighty Nein are a small enough group to be a warrior alliance, they're also larger than the usual trio. Nott and Jester are friends because they’re detectives together; she and Beau are friends in that they both know the truth about Caleb, and can tag-team in trying to help him deal with everything that comes with that. 

But Gryffindor takes precedence between houses, just as her bond with Caleb takes precedence over whatever relationship she has with the others in the Mighty Nein. This is showcased in one of the earlier episodes - her attempt to steal Fjord’s Soltryce Academy letter and give it to Caleb, thinking that that would benefit Caleb. 

Normally, I don’t know if a Gryffindor and a Slytherin would be the best possible combo. But these two owe each other so much - it’s implied, or stated, that they’ve gone back and forth saving each others’ lives, which didn’t stop once they joined the nascent Mighty Nein. Nott has adopted Caleb as her Gryffindor’s One True Friend (Out Of At A Maximum Three), and Caleb has convinced himself that teaming up with Nott will allow him to complete his goals more easily - probably true, now that he has a high DPS ally (and not just his 11-12 AC) to protect him. Nott’s Hufflepuff-ness also comes into play here - I’ve heard that Slytherins get on best with Hufflepuffs. But that’s not to say they couldn’t be friends if she was Gryffindor through and through - this is just extra evidence. 

Nott’s backstory - her reaction to the ways of her goblin tribe, and the way she bonded with Yeza - also says ‘Gryffindor’ to me. Nott saw injustice happening (Hufflepuff or Gryffindor traits, your pick) and reacted to it by being the worst goblin possible, unwilling to participate in what was unjust but also incapable of doing anything bigger due to the constraints of her community. And then Yeza (One True Friend #1) was just about dropped in her lap, and Nott found her opportunity.

What kind of bravery must it have taken to not only break Yeza out, but leave behind everything she knew for an even more hostile world? What nerve, to leave behind the only community she’d ever known. Nott the Brave has earned her title ten times over, and will only continue to prove why she holds it. Caleb, on the other hand - I don’t know where his ambition will take him. I hope Nott truly is enough to protect him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I am nigh endlessly available online to be shouted at should there be any disagreements. 
> 
> In case you were wondering, Nott's Gryffindor One True Friend (Out Of A Max Of Three) #3 is Jester.


	3. Beau, Jester, and Fjord - Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here comes chapter three, already! I had a lot of fun figuring these three out, because I didn't have any set ideas going in (as you may be able to tell from my rambling narration). But I like where I ended up.

    Beau, Beau, Beau. Beauregard Lionett, if Marisha’s Pinterest page is to be believed, though I’ll admit I always thought Beauregard would end up being her last name. What do we know about Beau? She likes knowing things about people; she’s blunt to the point of offense; she’s not particularly ambitious beyond finding a drink every night and occasionally finding someone to punch real good.

What else? Her parents were prosperous - winemakers in a town that, perhaps, depended on that industry. Beau went out of her way to undermine that industry, selling good stock (or her parent’s property) at probably discounted rates (but profitable to Beau herself) to criminal types, because she could. She ruined a man’s marriage by finding information that would drive a wedge in between him and his wife, because she could. 

We also know Beau isn’t proud of these things. Not anymore, at least. Beau feels things  _ really  _ deeply, though she tries not to let on any of it. This is someone who cried when she realized how deeply Molly had touched her, who tried to reassure Caleb (albeit roughly) after she learned of his story and tell him that he wasn’t a bad person. So she’s empathetic, too, with a good sense for fair and unfair - wouldn’t you say that Caleb being tricked into killing his parents was unfair? And she feels anger just as deeply as other emotions, too (remember when they got robbed in Hupperdook?). 

Beau likes to get into a fight, too. With the Expositor, and with pretty much every fight the Mighty Nein’s gotten into, she’s been up at the forefront of it. Partly this is a result of what monks are mechanically capable of doing, but unlike Jester, Beau’s never shown the slightest hesitancy about embracing her class and throwing herself into the thick of things. 

    I don’t believe, however, that she necessarily seeks out these fights. They just sort of happen to her - the Expositor seeking her out via Xenoth, the Mighty Nein taking on various jobs. Then again, with the Mighty Nein, most of the jobs they take it’s safe to assume that a fight will be happening at some point - like with the spider in the sewer. But seeking out fights, then, is a consequence of playing D&D and trying to move along the plot, not something that’s a character trait of Beau’s.

    What else? Beau has a close bond with both Jester and Fjord, friends she more or less came into the game with. While they haven’t known each other for much longer than the rest of the group, Beau’s already attached herself pretty thoroughly to them - Jester’s her roommate, Fjord’s her advice guy for learning to be nicer to people. And here comes Beau’s desire for self-improvement again - she’s very conscious of whatever ways she may fall short. Probably a result of her relationship with her dad, or at least a result of some kind of a conscience still whispering to her from the back of her mind. 

    I’ve written a full page, and yet I don’t know if I’m any closer to being able to decide what House Beau belongs in than when I started. A Hatstall for sure, then, and around this point I’m wishing I could see Beau’s thoughts as well. Is she a Gryffindor? She’s got the requisite Two Very Best Friends and is a reactive fighter, throwing herself into the fray only once a fight has already started (Expositor Dairon got one or two hits in before Beau even considered hitting back). 

    And yet I don’t want to automatically go for Gryffindor. She could fit it, but I want to test the waters of other Houses. I think Ravenclaw, honestly, would suit Beau just as well. She’s very interested in getting answers to her questions, even if at first they seem to be trite. Her learning of Caleb’s backstory was in response to her asking a flippant ‘why are you afraid of fire?’ because he’d mentioned offhand a few days that he had a complicated history with it. Additionally, she’s a monk of the Cobalt Soul, an order devoted to The Knowing Mistress, Ioun (a goddess of knowledge and exposing information to the public eye, for those who haven’t seen campaign one). While Beau personally may not worship Ioun, her order does, and Beau sure as hell picked up a thing or two from that order. 

    Ravenclaw or Gryffindor - either could easily be her primary House. But there’s one thing that tips the scales for me in this case: Beau made a choice between the two.

    In meeting Expositor Dairon, and taking Way of the Cobalt Soul as her monk subclass, Beau chose the path of knowledge (with dope fighting abilities as a side effect). She chooses to ally herself with this institution. That alone means that however Gryffindor Beauregard Lionett may be, you’d better expect to see her in blue and bronze when September first rolls around. 

    For the sake of the argument, though, what about Hufflepuff? While Beau gets along with the group as a whole, I don’t think she’s particularly community-oriented. Beau cares about Beau first, and while if the Mighty Nein broke apart she’d no doubt be disappointed, it wouldn’t be because she lost the group - it would because she left the individual friends that it was comprised of. And if she has a problem with someone, it’s not always because it’s unfair, it’s just because she doesn’t like what they’re doing, and she has no qualms about stepping in and trying to set them straight herself. To err on the Ravenclaw side again for a moment, she steps in to correct their opinion when she thinks they’re Wrong. Caleb was Wrong for wanting to keep Cali with the group, potentially against her will, just so  _ he  _ could have a certain peace of mind. But Beau later apologized for this - she’s able to recognize when she’s Wrong, too.

    As for Slytherin...I just really, really can’t picture Beau in Slytherin. She could be clever, but I don’t think she’s necessarily cunning - she’s not enough of a smooth talker. The closest she got to cunning was “I hate when Phil ruins torture hour, right?” in the most recent episode, and that was because she had advantage from her disguise. And Beau is, upfront, the  _ least  _ ambitious person in the group. Beau is running away from her father and the order - she’s not running  _ towards  _ anything, unlike literally everyone else in the group. 

    Like, for example, Jester. Jester’s goal was one of the first we heard - she’s looking for her dad! Though this goal has fallen largely to the wayside since episode one, Jester’s a very upfront sort of person. I also believe that a lot of what Jester’s upfront about is an act.

    Not in a bad way, of course. Jester’s a very cheerful person and smiles about nearly everything - that kind of cheerfulness is the result of effort. In the words of Taliesin Jaffe, who was talking about Keyleth, “sometimes you have to be the Lisa Frank you want to see in the world”. Jester gives out what she wants to get back from people, and a lot of the time it pays off. Is there a single member of the Mighty Nein who wouldn’t lay down their life in an instant to protect Jester? No. Jester is the best. She’s not necessarily the comic relief of the group, but she’s something similar - the lighthearted element, the one going “Kids, can you lighten the fuck up?”, but nicely. It’s impossible not to smile around Jester. She just has that effect on people. And she’s  _ trying  _ to have that effect on people - an admirable goal. 

    On the surface, Jester seems like the ideal Hufflepuff - her general aesthetic supports it. But Jester doesn’t really fulfill Hufflepuff ideals. While she’s certainly loyal, hard work doesn’t appeal to her - she’d rather cast spells and deal damage than take the time to heal her allies at, in a way, her own expense (a spell slot used for Heal Wounds can’t cast Spiritual Weapon later). 

    Probably Jester isn’t  _ used _ to doing much hard work (unless hard work means weightlifting, because that strength score, damn) as a result of her early life. Her mother’s job and the money she can afford to give Jester means that we  _ know  _ Jester is, essentially, a trust fund kid. We can assume she’s had servants to help her out every day of her life, to prepare food and draw baths and teach her to read and write and, most likely, raise her while her mother was busy. As a result, Jester just plain doesn’t see why she should have to start doing any of this kind of work when she never had to before. 

    As for other Houses I can dismiss out of hand, Jester’s just too straightforward and stuck in her own head for Slytherin. This is the girl who wanted to tell the High Richter that they’d had their puppies stolen to convince her to ‘help’ the Mighty Nein’s con. Their puppies were stolen. Jester, please. And Jester’s not necessarily ambitious either - she has a goal, sure, but that’s easily tossed aside in favor of the closest pleasurable or fun activity. 

    I should clarify - ‘stuck in her own head’ isn’t an insult. I love it about Jester. It just means that Jester assumes that everyone in the world works in the same ways and has the same assumptions that she does. Why shouldn’t milk be available at a bar? She would order milk. Why shouldn’t saying their puppies were stolen work?  _ She’d  _ help someone who had their puppies stolen. 

    Like Beau, Gryffindor could suit Jester. Not all melee fighters are necessarily Gryffindors, but Jester does take a certain pleasure in leaping into a fight (not a quality that is exclusively Gryffindorish, though Rowling would beg to differ) and doesn’t want to waste time  _ not  _ trying to kill the guys who are trying to kill them. That’s a very straightforward, reactive mindset - someone’s trying to hurt us? Not cool. Let’s hurt them back until they’re not a problem anymore. And, like Beau, Jester has her requisite small crew of friends who would willingly follow her (if not race her) into a fight.

    But is Jester  _ brave?  _ How do we find out? I suspect we’ll have a pretty in depth answer to that question by this Thursday, if Jester is still in the depths of the Iron Shepherd’s hideout. But going off of what we already know and have seen of her...how do we tell? Bravery is a prerequisite for any adventurer. What marks a defining quality level amount of it?

    Circumstances.

    It’s been heavily implied that Jester had a privileged upbringing - but maybe not privileged enough to have certain opportunities other kids had, like leaving the house. Or even leaving her room. Other fanfic'ers have taken that idea and run with it, so I’ll leave that there for now, but Jester ventures out without even the idea of fear into a world that is so very, very unlike what she expects it to be. Is it brave if you don’t think you need to be brave to do it? 

    I don’t think so. But I think what is brave is  _ maintaining  _ that cheerful, vaguely feckless attitude even when she has no doubt been confronted with many, many reasons to change it, to harden herself in response to the world outside being more unforgiving than expected. How long did Jester travel before she met Fjord or Beau? We know from Travis talking at panels that Nicodranas wasn’t the only place she’s had to run away from the city guard because of pranks that got out of hand - is Jester just prancing across the land, doing whatever the hell she wants and fuck the consequences?

_     Gryffindor. So, so Gryffindor.  _ Have I mentioned recently that I love Jester? I feel like half the reason the Mighty Nein fall in around her so easily is because she can endear herself to anyone. Jester’s preferred method of protection is finding just the right people who will go, “This is a lovely person. If anyone touches this lovely person, I will kill them.” Sorry, Lorenzo, who knew you were signing your own death warrant? But to keep it on the topic of Jester, here’s a better analogy for her cheerfulness being brave: Lucy Pevensie.

    For those of you not familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia, this is the part where you Google the basic premise. But, here’s a hint: Lucy Pevensie, youngest of four, wide-eyed child, discovers the magical land of Narnia. And she has to not only convince the other three that it  _ exists,  _ but once they’re banished back to England, she has to convince herself that it’s worth remembering. Lucy Pevensie charges herself with bringing Narnia back to England with her. There’s a quote from dirgewithoutmusic’s ‘a call rattling in her bones’, that I’m particularly thinking of right now. Bear with me, it’s a little long:

    “It is a stubborn faith, a steady one, harsh even. Lucy clings to things with two small hands that remember having calluses from reins, remember holding hands with dryads and dancing in the moonlight, remember running though a lion’s wild mane. Lucy grins (it is a defiance, not a grace, not a gift); she bares her teeth and goes dancing at midnight under trees that creak in a storm’s gale (she gets a cold and misses a week of school, for that). Lucy will believe until the end of the world, burning with that effortless faith. 

    This is not effortless. “Such a happy child,” their mother says of Lucy...“Luce?” said Edmund. “Happy? I suppose. She’s more a fighter than any of us.”

    Lucy gets up early in the mornings and goes outside to watch the sunrise while she eats her toast. Susan is jealous of her ease, for years; an early riser, a morning person, effortlessly romantic...every day Lucy watches the sun rise and lets that fill her.  _ Easy _ thinks Susan, jealous, and she is wrong. 

    It is not for years that she realizes how much effort is tucked into Lucy’s bright smiles. The joy is not a lie, the faith is not contrived, but it  _ is  _ built. Lucy pulls herself out of bed each morning. She watches the fires of the day climb and conquer the sky, and dares her world to be anything less than magical.”

    It is brave to walk through the world and refuse to acknowledge it as anything less than what you want it to be. Selfish, yes - Jester is a very selfish person. But it’s brave. 

    Now, Fjord...I don’t know how brave Fjord is. What do we really know about Fjord? He was a sailor who nearly drowned, and lost a captain and a good friend when some disaster rocked his ship and maybe tore it to pieces. Maybe he  _ did  _ drown. However he survived, he got a sword he doesn’t understand and magic he understands less out of it. But - here’s the thing - whenever something comes up that could clue him in to what’s going on, Fjord latches the fuck onto that. Molly shows up wielding also magical swords, seemingly? Hey there new roommate, whatcha doin’ with those swords. His patron whispers ominously into his mind? You bet your ass Fjord’s going  _ all the way down  _ that dangerous underwater tunnel by himself to check out what’s on the other end.

    (I don’t know if the Stone Eye Incident™ necessarily counts, since he was semi-enchanted or in a trance state or something when that happened, but like. This is the same Fjord who ate a sword in a dream. My dude. Please. Take a minute to think things through).

    Fjord is fairly impulsive for the sake of his own goals, but in other circumstances, he likes to think things through. Other circumstances being largely when the state of the group is at stake - when it’s just Fjord, he’s more willing to jump into potentially messy business. This makes me kinda believe that he could be Lawful-oriented - the group, in his mind, is worth more than the individual. 

    But it seems like to Fjord, the individual’s  _ goals  _ are worth more to him than certain group stuff. In the caves under Labenda Swamp - both with investigating the tunnel and the Eye Incident™ - it’s important to note that while he jumped at the chance to potentially gain answers to his own questions, there  _ were no important group problems  _ currently distracting him. In both of those moments, the questions that needed answering could be answered alongside his own. There was nothing that the group needed to prioritize  _ over  _ his own stuff, so Fjord went “alright it’s okay now” and went ahead and did it. With mixed results. 

    So we can’t put Fjord in Slytherin, because he doesn’t put his own goals over other people’s/the Mighty Nein’s goals. But when he does pursue his own ends, he’s an impulsive shit - are he, Beau, and Jester the Mighty Nein equivalent of the Golden Trio, with their Gryffindorish traits? I’m not sure he’s so suited to Gryffindor, either. All the characters I’ve Sorted there (or considered Sorting there, in Beau’s case)  _ do  _ share a certain love for fighting that I’ve never really seen in Fjord. He’s good at fighting, yeah, but he doesn’t really get into it. It’s just something that needs to get done for the sake of the group’s goals.

    So, really, there’s only one answer here, considering I’ve spent the last half a page talking about how much Fjord prioritizes his small community. Fjord’s a Hufflepuff. 

    Hear me out! Reread those last three paragraphs! Why  _ couldn’t  _ he be? Fjord, with that Charisma score, is very much a mediator when something goes wrong. He’s far more of a diffuser of tension and strife than Caleb is - Caleb’s more likely to cause it (the High Richter’s house, again - Fjord threatens him because he believes Caleb is putting the group at risk). 

    Fjord also keeps his companions in the dark about his own personal issues, because bringing those to light do not benefit the group in any way, and may even cause friction between him and them, to their detriment. He goes to the extreme of using  _ a false voice  _ (I see you, Travis, you and your dream British accent) to keep his issues and the group separate. While it’s not necessarily morally upright, it  _ does  _ do the job - so far, nothing more extreme than the Stone Eye Incident™ has caused the group any trouble. And despite myself, I do believe Fjord when he says he doesn’t know what the hell is going on. 

    (But I’m watching you, Travis Willingham. Watching. You.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, come and shout at me in the comments or online. For those curious, [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1336642) is the dirgewithoutmusic story I referenced - it's from a series largely focused on The Problem Of Susan, and fantastic writing.


	4. Molly, Yasha, and Mr. Clay - Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff, and ???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to the tune of Freddie Mercury: DON'T. STOP. ME. NOW. DON'T. STOP. ME CUZ IM HAVIN' A GOOD TIME, HAVIN' A GOOD TIME!

I’ll be honest, my first instinct with Molly was to throw him into Hufflepuff without looking back. I’m still not sure I’m wrong to do so. Molly is, at Taliesin’s own word, very well suited in manner and life philosophy to Hufflepuff house. 

Molly manages his expectations around having a group of people who are not necessarily similar in either of those ways to him or each other. He expects to have to mediate, to make compromises, for the sake of keeping the group together. Molly  _ does not know how to properly get on with life  _ without a group. Any kind of community, no matter how small, is where Mollymauk Tealeaf belongs. How else could you take that kind of solid life philosophy?

And I would say he’s loyal, too, not because he is particularly attached to these people but because he can forgive almost anything. Molly’s a really nice person, guys. He gives so little shits about anything that it would take something truly egregious to earn his ire. 

But for the sake of argument, let’s explore the other houses. Is Molly suited to Ravenclaw? Absolutely not. He doesn’t care about knowing jack shit. He doesn’t care to know about his past, nor even the names of the towns his circus passes through. He’s not particularly invested in whether his opinions are factually right or wrong.

What about Slytherin? Is Molly ambitious? If ambition means to see as much of life as possible before your mysterious forgotten past eventually catches up with you, sure, he’s ambitious. Is he cunning? Enough to get people into seats at the circus, but not much farther than that. 

And Gryffindor? Is Molly brave? If he is, it’s a spiteful bravery. It’s whatever powers his desire to be flashy and obvious in a world not necessarily kind to tieflings, though we’ve seen not so much prejudice against tieflings as general unkind people. Though, apparently, sometimes gnomes are dicks. 

But Yasha...Yasha is an enigma. A fallen aasimar from the dark lands of Xhorhas, a boggy place where they eat rats and where something happened to cause her to follow a god of storms over the mountains and into unfamiliar - even enemy - lands. What in the hells do we even know about Yasha for sure other than that?

Alright, let’s just go down the list and I’ll see if I lean towards any particular house once we get to the end.

Yasha is devoted to her god. Is the Stormlord her father, maybe? New theory. Either way, this loyalty takes precedence over literally everything else in her life, to the point where when he tells her to go, she just goes. And this is a regular occurrence, to the point where Molly refers to her doing it as having “Yasha’d” and Orna knows what he means. Point to Hufflepuff in favor of claiming Yasha. 

Yasha likes flowers. She collects them, most likely just because they’re pretty or something she hasn’t seen before. What does this do? Maybe it allows her to remember where she’s been, in the “oh this is where I found that nice blue one” way. This seems more like a habit that doesn’t necessarily reflect the qualities of one particular house.

Yasha’s very good at fighting. Whether out of necessity or otherwise, she is. As a barbarian, she’s better than most by default. While, again, I hesitate to class all those who are good at fighting or big damage-dealers automatically as Gryffindors or with Gryffindor leanings, there’s an element of that in all (okay, both) who’ve gone to Gryffindor so far. Additionally, the urge to fight (at least as a plot excuse for mechanical aspects) has got to come from somewhere. Why does Yasha want to fight badly enough to go into a rage in battle? My best guess is something happened in her backstory to point her down this road as a reaction.

It’s  _ something.  _ Point to Gryffindor.

Yasha likes Molly. Molly’s a Hufflepuff. What houses get along best with Hufflepuff? I’ve heard Slytherin. But Yasha also gets along pretty well with Caleb, since they’ve bonded over their mutual fumbling in social situations. Yasha’s ambitions are of this moment still a mystery, but as for cunning, I wouldn’t really give her that much. Another point to Hufflepuff, then. Yes, I’m reaching. Do you blame me?

Then again, while we’re over here racking up points for Hufflepuff, Yasha’s not so much of a team player. Sure, she likes the Mighty Nein plenty, but someone who’s constantly running off to who-knows-where can’t necessarily be Party Member of the Month. 

In a roundabout way, however, this steers me more towards Hufflepuff. Yasha’s not a team player because her  _ loyalty,  _ for whatever reasons, is owed to a higher power than her friends in the Mighty Nein. Being true to the Stormlord’s will, and answering his call, will always take precedence over her friends in the party. If she weren’t beholden to that bond, what else could possibly summon her away?

But, since I’ve already made that point (damn it, past me, I was on a roll), I’ll go a little further. Traveling so far all the time is really hard work. It’s super hard to make a living when you’re never in one place for more than a handful of days. Both at the Stormlord’s command and with the circus, Yasha is probably  _ always  _ working and near-constantly on her feet. Yet she never expresses resentment about either of her situations, and I’m hard pressed to think of a time where she’s complained about anything. 

But since this chapter is short, and the last one had three, why not do three here as well? What about Mr. Caduceus Clay, gravedigger and erstwhile gardener? Where does he belong?

It’s entirely too early to say very much about Clay at all, so I may revisit it as more information becomes available. But Clay is an affable kind of firbolg who’ll greet random horses and hug anyone who asks for it. Clay, if he’s telling the truth, has been abandoned by his family to guard a place that is day by day shrinking in on him. 

He also longs endlessly for the world outside, to the point where he has a go bag packed and ready. He has armor made for him by a sister he speaks of fondly, and he knows precisely which family each flower he uses for tea comes from (and their occupation as well - when he makes the pot he pours out for the remaining Mighty Nein, he comments that the gravesites that produced the flowers were a “textiles family”). 

What can we extrapolate from this? Does Clay miss his family for the community it offered? Does he want to discover something about the world outside, or is he just sick of where he’s been forever? Side note,  _ has  _ he been in the woods of Shady Creek Run forever, or just recently? Was this pastel goth boy  _ born in a goddamn graveyard? Taliesin please _

Anyway, based on him as a person so far, my guess is Ravenclaw. I’ll come back to this chapter and provide edits and other evidence when more information becomes available, whenever that should be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because why not


	5. Vex & Vax - Slytherin and Hufflepuff

Alright, so I have some ideas for the twins already, but I wanna dive into this and see if I run across any new thoughts while I do. I’m gonna have to go  _ way back  _ and unearth some Ye Olde Feels about these two, but let’s get on it! I’m doing Vex first because I Am Gay And In Love. 

Vex is hard to pin down. She undergoes a lot of character development over the course of campaign one, but of course so do all of them - Vox Machina by nature are going to be a lot more difficult than the Mighty Nein. But I’m doing my best so let’s go over Vex. 

Vex is a coin-counter who never really lets that aspect of her personality go, but who learns over the campaign the value of forgiveness and love. She’s immensely clever, and a deadly shot who nevertheless takes no particular pleasure in battle. The greatest loves in her life are her brother and her bear (sorry, Percy, you really do come in at number three). 

Vex is loyal, too, but that’s also par for the course for Vox Machina by the time their adventures made it to our screens - they’d been together for too long to be anything but. She’s very concerned for the welfare of the group, mostly in terms of money - her own childhood anxieties regarding it play with her perception of how capable they will be with or without it, and how much they can afford to not have. This is definitely a projection of her wanting to be assured of her own welfare - having been with Vox Machina for so long, especially in the beginning, Vex likely imagines herself as nothing without it, save for one of a pair. Obviously, Vax is always there for her, but she and Vax can always have nothing together.

Honestly, the more I consider it, the more I like my initial guess for Vex. She’s very much a Slytherin - and while caring for the individual first doesn’t mean she can’t care for her friends, there’s several cases where she  _ does  _ put her own goals first (the Broom Incident, which I thought was hilarious), and if Vox Machina were for whatever reason to become worse than an alternative where she was by herself, you bet your ass Vex would go off by herself. 

What about Vax, then? In comparison to Vex, he gives his heart much more freely - not necessarily in love, but in kinship with all these wackos he’s in an adventuring party with. Surprisingly, though, Vax is the one of the two who in-game expressed a desire to leave Vox Machina - right before the Chroma Conclave hit, when he didn’t know if Vox Machina had a point anymore or if they were just a bunch of assholes running around doing whatever they wanted. Vax feels so deeply, all the time! He, like Keyleth, is preoccupied with whether Vox Machina is doing  _ good -  _ though not nearly to the same degree, and not enough to stop himself from running off Kynan Leore.

But what about Kynan? That doesn’t disprove the depth of Vax’s heart. When this kid resurfaced at the side of  _ Anna goddamn Ripley,  _ Vax only felt sadness. He felt grief, and was aware enough of his anger to stifle it under that and pity. Pity for this kid who had attacked Keyleth, attacked Vex and Percy, attacked his friends. His family. 

It’s hard to say whether or not Vax is a Hufflepuff - even for those outside his ‘community’, Vax extends his friendship. He could have said that what Kynan did was unfair and deserved justice. But I think Kynan did get justice - he got what a scared boy who was lied to deserved. 

Of course, we could also say that Vax is a Gryffindor (Jenga). But when he throws himself into fights, it is reactive - reactive to threats against his people, his family. Vax doesn’t react to the Briarwoods threatening him or Vox Machina, he takes the initiative against a perceived threat against  _ just one of them  _ and nearly ends up dead for it. I wrote this section intending to make an argument for Gryffindor, but ended up circling right back around into Hufflepuff. I just can’t sort him anywhere else. Plus the dream team of Hufflepuff/Slytherin twins is just the best. And I really, truly do feel that’s where they belong.


	6. Percy and Keyleth - Slytherin and Gryffindor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one might be a little short, because I had rough ideas for where I wanted to put these two already and didn't run across anything that changed my mind

I just wanna, real quick, make something about Percy clear by pulling in a quote from the Briarwood arc. 

“I want to hurt them. I want them to pay…it is not justice I am motivated by. I am so grateful there is justice in this, but even if there weren’t, I would still be here.”

_ Slytherin. _

Allow me to expand on this. Percy may be “neutral good” (you make Vex change her alignment but not possessed-by-a-demon-de-Rolo, Matt?), but his goals throughout most of the campaign and especially the Briarwood arc are his goals alone. Vox Machina is a pleasant side effect that allows him the prestige and the position to pursue these goals without being immediately murdered. 

That’s not to say that Percy doesn’t very much like the members of his party - but a lot of the really deep bonding comes after the Briarwoods. In the early days, Percy is still half convinced he’s fever-dreaming it all and is in the grips of both a demon and un-dealt-with grief and anger. He’s going to get rid of the thing that is ruining Whitestone if it kills him. 

This emphasis on changing Whitestone - changing the status of the thing that ruined his life from alive to dead - is largely what puts him in Slytherin, and the lengths he goes to to accomplish this goal (guns, Orthax) also put him there. Percy is willing to go to places he himself finds morally reprehensible in order to see this goal done. His  _ own opinions  _ don’t matter - only getting it done.

In conclusion, Slytherin.

This may be why he and Vex click, but I more want to use this to lead into a different friendship - why do he and Keyleth get along so well? Is this another Hufflepuff/Slytherin combo? While Keyleth seems, like Jester, an ideal Hufflepuff on the surface, I don’t know how well that house fits her  _ primary  _ traits. But let’s take a look.

Hard work and loyalty - two primary aspects. Keyleth’s certainly a hard worker - her Aramente demands it. Loyalty - she’s certainly loyal, though again that’s an aspect all of Vox Machina share in regards to their bonds with each other. But Keyleth’s primary Hufflepuff trait is her demand that the world be just, that the world be fair, that the world be  _ good.  _ Like Jester, she wants the world to be like her, and if it’s not, she’s going to give out what she wants to receive.

So, like Jester, I’m inclined to put her in Gryffindor.

Is a desire to make the world  _ good  _ the same as wanting justice to be served? Keyleth feels both, but I know which one she prizes, and it’s the former. Plus, Keyleth is very reactive - she doesn’t actively seek out injustice to fight, she reacts to it when she sees it happening. 

And, come on, this is the girl whose plan to retrieve a diamond was to  _ jump off a cliff  _ because she hadn’t done anything exciting or gone on any adventures in over a year. She was followed in the Nine Hells and turned into a scarier demon to make them back off. 

She looked an ancient dragon in the eye and offered her clemency and pardon, despite her own personal anger and as many reasons to want Raishan dead as there were Fire Ashari who perished. 

Keyleth is the best Gryffindor. 


	7. Pike, Grog, and Scanlan - Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it;s very late right now

Now, of course, we come to the remaining members of Vox Machina and the original best friends trio: Grog, Pike, and Scanlan. I’m not really sure which to tackle first, since I don’t have concrete ideas for any of them yet, but I just had a delightfully engaging conversation with one of the people who sparked this fic because they referred to Pike as “a rabbi who travels with [Vox Machina] part time”, so let’s go with her.

Pike is the best, let’s get that out of the way first. Arguably her moral “purity” stems from the fact that she spends so much time away from the group and therefore has less time to get up to Shenanigans™, but purity is in quotes for a reason up there. Pike canonically does whatever the hell she wants, mostly, when she’s away from the party. And with the party, too - her “flashcards” for Taryon are one of the prime examples of that here.

I think that Pike also feels the weight of being The Best Out Of All Of Them. Percy makes this point in his goodbye letter to the team - “You bring everyone closer to their best selves, and I can only imagine what a burden that must be.” They don’t just look up to Pike and admire her for her ability to not get bogged down in bad decision after bad decision, she’s the one with their lives in her hands. She’s the one with all the resurrection spells, the healing spells (though Scanlan and Keyleth, as well as Vex and Vax to some extent later, can heal wounds, they are never depended on for it and only hand out healing in small bursts). Pike is, by necessity, someone who can prioritize the group. Does she prioritize it over herself?

I would argue no, actually. Pike does what she has to do to keep her friend standing - but her long absences indicate that she has her own goals, her own promises to keep, which must take precedence.

I’m going to take a moment here to explain some terminology. The phrases ‘Watsonian’ and ‘Doylist’ are going to be very convenient and concise in a second, but possibly confusing to those who haven’t heard them before. They have their origins in the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; ‘Watsonian’ analysis refers to examining the stories as though they are true serialized publishings of a real person (Watson) who documented his friend’s life, while ‘Doylist’ analysis examines the stories through the lens of them being written by Arthur Conan Doyle, using Watson as a narrator. 

From a Doylist perspective, Pike has no choice but to leave the group - Ashley has a job she needs to get to, or else face repercussions. Matt goes out of his way, however, to give her an answer for why she’s leaving that will stand up under Watsonian analysis. This means that I’m also going to examine those reasons under a Watsonian analysis - why Pike leaves, and the fact that she does, is important for her Sorting.

The first time it’s established that Pike takes a leave of absence is after she dies, when she takes almost six months (relatively) to herself onboard the  _ Broken Howl.  _ The other incidents involve, almost to a second, Sarenrae. In Kraghammer at the beginning of the series airing, Pike is DM-played into staying behind on the upper levels because she’s unsure about Sarenrae’s guidance. Later, she periodically returns to Vasselheim to oversee the excavation of the temple there. 

So Pike is loyal to her deity as well as to Vox Machina, though those loyalties occasionally are at odds. I’m not sure loyalty is the primary aspect here - it’s more because she  _ loves  _ them that she’s willing to do these things. And in exchange for that love, all of them (including Sarenrae) love her back. 

And there’s something else I’d like to talk about in regards to Pike. She  _ really  _ likes fighting. Pike is Grog’s sister for a good cause, and second Champion of the Crucible in Vasselheim. During the Kraghammer arc, she killed someone so nastily and uncalled-for that Sarenrae got upset with her over it. Pike “Monsta” Trickfoot is not someone to be fucked with lightly, because she’s got a mace and her goddess will punch you to please her. 

So now I’ve got a thought in my head about Pike’s house, and that thought is saying Gryffindor. Pike’s not really so much about justice and community, she’s not particularly attached to causing change or pursuing the maintenance of a set tradition or field of knowledge. 

But then, doesn’t she cause change? Pike goes back periodically to excavate the temple of Sarenrae in Vasselheim, the oldest city in the world with a strict religious tradition that has never before had six deities to pay homage to. Pike, whether she’s aware of it or not, is moving and shaking Vasselheim down to its foundations. So maybe there’s a bit of Slytherin in there, change for the sake of the one she loves at the cost of leaving behind the ones she loves. I can see Slytherin in that love, too; Pike loves Sarenrae because Sarenrae embodies the things she wants in life, but not just that. Sarenrae is where Pike gets her power, her spellcasting strength. The healing spells and the ones that resurrect. Pike loves Sarenrae, at least partly, for the sake of her family. For Vox Machina, for Wilhand. That seems like a Slytherin kind of love. 

So Slytherin or Gryffindor or Hufflepuff? Which direction to pull? This is the part where we need to consider what kind of choices Pike has made. In response to dying, she went away to sail and get strong. She wanted to have the kind of strength to stop what had happened from ever happening again. That kind of choice, to me, speaks a lot to her Gryffindor side. 

And what about Grog? Pike’s got a lot in common with Grog. They’ve got that same genuine love for fighting that always seems to me to be a bit Gryffindorish, the unhesitating willingness to throw yourself into a fight as soon as someone says “roll for initiative”. And he’s made his fair share of change, too, shaking up the Herd of Storms to give Kevdak his due for a years-old insult. 

But what are Grog’s goals, really? All Grog wants to do in the long run is hit a lot of stuff to protect his friends - and later, his family, though we’re still talking about the same people. And FAMILY, that bond he was forcefully severed from with his Herd, is so, so important to Grog. It’s everything to him. That’s why Pike is his favorite. Scanlan is a close second just because of his developed fondness for gnomes, but also because they click really well, but that’s beside the point. I don’t think Slytherin suits Grog - and besides, he’s not the type to bother with cunning, except for when a little of Travis is shining through. 

Grog’s family is important to him in more ways than one. He uses them as a motive to fight  _ for  _ something (Gryffindor), to channel his rage in a conductive way. But he also depends on them - Pike, usually - to step in when he overdoes it, like with Craven Edge (though that was Scanlan, who didn’t do a very good job). Pike does step in alongside Scanlan in the finale to convince him to give up the Sword of Kas. Grog confides to her when he’s nervous about facing Kevdak, he gives Keyleth what she needs (in the form of talking, no less!) to make it through their brief alliance with Raishan, and he takes up Scanlan’s own art to bring Scanlan back from the dead after they’re through with Raishan. 

Grog is, I conclude, a Hufflepuff. His relationships with the other characters, the support he gives them in exchange for how they help him out, is too important to be discounted as anything but a major part of his character. Grog, on his own, would just be a dude wandering around hitting things with an ax and possibly making fine leather boots. Grog  _ with a community  _ has enough of a goal and a motive to be someone to be  _ very  _ frightened of.

(Side note: can someone check what Travis Willingham’s house is? I know he was wearing a Slytherin shirt in like episode ten of the new campaign, but either this mofo is a Hufflepuff in disguise or just so endeared of his friends that he’s incapable of making a character who doesn’t depend utterly upon them being there to function properly). 

But then, of course, we come to Scanlan. And Scanlan I wasn’t looking forward to, because I know this little bastard is gonna be a puzzle. What’s bullshit and what isn’t about his character?

For one, his love for Kaylie - that’s definitely genuine, I know that much. His affection for Vax may be partly Sam to Liam, but that’s super genuine nonetheless (again, Watsonian over Doylist every time). Scanlan’s entire persona, his entire gig as a bard, depends on people seeing him a certain way. Of course this extends to the group - though with Vox Machina he definitely cultivates an image so that they think the best of him, because he cares deeply about what they think of him.

Honestly, I may go back and watch episode 85, because even in the grips of trauma and confusion after two deaths in as many days that’s probably about as honest as Scanlan ever gets. He throws his own cultivated image back in the group’s face - what’s his mother’s name? They don’t know, because Scanlan never gave them the opportunity to find out. They only see him as the comic relief, the one who gives them shelter in a mansion and chicken for breakfast - because he explicitly provides them with it. 

And, yknow, I thought Scanlan was going to be difficult, but that sounds pretty Slytherin to me.

The only thing getting in the way of that is - does Scanlan have ambition? At all? He has temporary day by day ones, sure, like everyone - sleep with a pretty humanoid (the word following the adjective being optional, probably), lie the party through their most recent challenge, etc - but I don’t think he ever has an overarching goal like Percy, or even really a solid arc like Grog or Vex got. Both of the gnomes kind of fall through in terms of having a big dramatic Backstory Plot. 

But  _ ambitious -  _ maybe Scanlan is ambitious. Maybe his ambition is to be as good as everyone thinks he is, because in thinking back to episode 85, Scanlan lets slip the inklings of some issues in the way that he looks at himself. Or maybe I’m hallucinating remembering that, but the point is: how long can you lie about who you are before that starts to affect you? How long, before it feels like nobody in the world really knows you, before the sparkling mask the public sees is too golden and shining to ever live up to?

My point is, cha’boy’s got some Problems.

(Please forgive me if this analysis seems like it’s getting out of control, the current time is midnight precisely). 

So maybe Scanlan’s got some Slytherin, but a troubled one. Here’s the thing:  _ Scanlan has also made the same choice Beau has.  _ Scanlan is someone willingly in the service of the Knowing Mistress, but instead of gathering knowledge (which he does anyway, charming it out of people), he distributes it in the form of stories. Scanlan eschews what is known for what he  _ says  _ is known, and people believe him because he can say it in a way that makes them believe him. I don’t know if that’s more Slytherin or Ravenclaw; to create entities and imply a whole history backing them up (Burt Reynolds, Francois Bertrand Jean-Luc Australia, Aes Adon/The Meat Man), or to effect such change by bringing them into existence?

But it’s late, so I’m going to go back to what Rowling says and I think is the most important factor: Scanlan chose. He accepted Ioun’s blessing, completed her challenge to retrieve the Tome of Isolation. 

He didn’t have to. 

Ravenclaw it is, Mr. Shorthalt. 


	8. Taryon - Gryffindor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a little abrupt, but i don't have as much to say about him

I realized as I was typing up the last chapter that I’d forgotten somebody (no, I’m not doing Tiberius, yes that’s on purpose). However short his time was with Vox Machina, Taryon Darrington made enough of an impact that I have enough material to potentially Sort with, and anyway he deserves it because he’s the best. 

My gut instinct is to put Taryon in Ravenclaw - besides how the whole artificer class works, making Doty and all, he’s a lover of books. But Taryon’s more into fantasy and adventure than academia, and the book he himself writes is a travel tale, not a book of facts or a history. 

Taryon’s a man who pursues change. He sets out to change his own life into a grand adventure, he comes back home to change his family’s lifestyle into something entirely new to save them. While I wouldn’t necessarily classify him as cunning, he’s definitely willing to lie to achieve his own ends, however short a time those lies stand up under scrutiny. 

He’s more than willing to strike out on his own, so he’s brave in addition to all that. And Taryon commits himself strongly; he never showed the inclination to turn back from his adventuring quest, though admittedly he had plenty of motivation not to. After knowing Vox Machina for a short time and being given plenty of motivation to ditch them, he was willing to go to literally the Nine Hells with them -  _ and  _ into the plane of Water to fight a Kraken. He was about to step up to help resurrect Vax, as well, but allowed someone else (I don’t recall who it was) to take his place, acknowledging that they had more right. Taryon may be overconfident, naïve, and self-aggrandizing, but he’s not blind, nor is he a bad person, and he undergoes a great deal of development in his short time with Vox Machina.

So maybe I’m leaning more Gryffindor, now. After all, Taryon was spurred on his quest by the threat of losing his inheritance to his younger sister; he didn’t leave for the hell of it. His bond with Vox Machina is a friend’s steadfastness, the kind of friend who would follow you into battle but also needs to crash on your sofa for a little because they’re not very good at life in general. Even for one so confident in his own abilities, Taryon must know the limits of his own power; it takes some bravery to step out your door and decide that someday you’re going to be the hero of your own story. Literally.

Aggravatingly arrogant, maybe, but at least a little brave. Taryon knows himself best of everyone, after all. He may present an unflappable bravado to the outside world, but I doubt what comes out of his mouth is what’s going through his mind. And let’s not forget that Taryon decided adventuring, though it had nearly killed him more than once, was worth devoting his life to (his Brigade back in Wildemount being evidence of this). 

So, Gryffindor.


End file.
